


Tharra for the Boogeyman

by Yevynaea



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alcohol, Crack, Drinking, Drunkenness, F/M, Gen, Swearing, and phil has a patented hangover cure, dubious consent to drinking, pitch has a low alcohol tolerance, pitch is a cuddly shadow cat and a talkative drunk, some platonic fluff i guess, they all get drunk and shit happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yevynaea/pseuds/Yevynaea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pitch walks in on the Guardians all getting drunk off their asses and is persuaded/coerced into joining them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tharra for the Boogeyman

**Author's Note:**

> For those unfamiliar with it, tharra/sulai is an (illegal) alcoholic drink made and drunk primarily in northern India.

            “Sooo, I know…that, like…” Jack paused to gather his thoughts, face scrunching up in mild confusion when he couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say. “Oh yeah! So, Tooth, ‘m preeeetty sure you had, like, big wings when you were younger? Like…bird wings? I dunno. Bunny said sometin ‘bout it an’ I dunno…why yer wings got lil?”

            Tooth laughed, which she’d been doing nearly all night anyway, then she grew suddenly serious and leaned forward as if she was going to tell Jack an important secret.

            “I dunno either. I think it’ got somethin’ to do with kids thinking ‘m delicate or somethin’.” She said half-hysterically, then burst into giggles again, pausing only to take yet another drink from the huge bottle of sulai—or possibly tharra, Jack didn’t remember the difference—that she had in one hand. Jack looked around at the sitting room in North’s workshop that they were all currently drinking themselves silly in, wondering where he’d left his staff. Then he remembered that he was holding it and smiled sleepily, startling violently when he heard Bunny yell something heavily-accented and slurred. North yelled something equally unintelligible right back, and apparently this had been going on for a while because Sandy was lounging on a dreamsand beanbag chair and eating popcorn while he contentedly watched the two argue.

            Jack spaced out a bit, staring at an interesting shadow across the room. It seemed to be moving around, back and forth like a cat, and Jack wanted to cuddle it. He bet shadow cats were very cuddly, if only it would come over here so he could cuddle it…

“Hey, come ‘ere.” He motioned to it, making Toothiana laugh harder, and Jack scowled at her, then at the shadow cat when it didn’t move toward him. He’d just have to go over to the shadow cat instead, then. Jack tried to stand up, using his staff to steady himself and nearly dropping the latest bottle of alcohol that’d been given to him. He thought it was some kind of whiskey, maybe?

When Jack finally stumbled over to the shadow cat, he sat down in front of it and eagerly reached his hand out, but it suddenly grew and solidified into something tall and with funny hair and glaring eyes. Jack fell over backwards and just lay there, eyes wide, until the shock wore off and he could speak again.

“Pitch…” He slurred, getting up shakily and trying to glare at the Nightmare King while simultaneously staying upright. “What…areyoudoin’ here?”

“Pitch!” Tooth yelled, enraged, giggles suddenly gone. Sandy looked up, startled, and North and Bunny finally stopped their shouting long enough to turn their aggression toward the fear spirit. Pitch looked at all of them. Stumbling drunk, all of them, (except Sandy, but he didn’t count because he was floating) the Guardians didn’t make for very impressive foes. Pitch almost burst out laughing at the sight of them, but just then Jack got a great idea and stepped forward, holding his bottle of alcohol out to the older man.

“’Ere. Take it ‘fore I fall o’er.” Jack insisted, and Pitch snorted in amusement, taking the bottle from Jack just as the frost sprite began to lose his balance. Ah, yes, Jack thought, the floor was much better than standing up. The floor was soft and comfy. But something bothered Jack. “It doesn’ doooo an’thin…if you don’…driiiink it.” He pointed out.

“I’d rather not.” Pitch crinkled his nose at the drink, the expression sending Toothiana into a new fit of giggles. Sandy, who’d gone back to laying on his dreamsand and eating his popcorn, laughed silently with her, cheeks a ‘rosy’ orange which was really the only outward evidence of his drunkenness.

“Oh come on Pitch!” North laughed boisterously, clapping a hand on the Boogeyman’s shoulder when not two minutes ago he’d been looking ready to strangle Pitch. Bunny, from where he’d fallen over, was saying something extremely rude about Pitch’s lineage, but it seemed that the moment of aggression had passed for all of the Guardians; they were perfectly content to let their archenemy join in their little drinking party. Pitch smirked. He could wipe them all out right now, it’d be so easy, he’d barely have to lift a finger.

“Aaaare you gonna drink the alc’hol er not?” Jack tried to look stern from his place on the ground.

“He can’t drink that though!” Tooth gasped between giggle fits, pointing to the bottle still in Pitch’s hand. “This is _sooo_ much better!” She flitted forward into Pitch’s personal space, raising the bottle of tharra up to the Boogeyman’s lips for him. Pitch glared, mouth pressed shut, and Tooth shrugged, drinking some more of the alcohol herself.

Pitch yelped when he was suddenly lifted by a rope of dreamsand and plopped down next to the Sandman on the little man’s gold beanbag chair. Sandy had effectively moved Pitch out of the shadows and away from his only escape route, and the dreamsand rope was still wrapped around Pitch’s torso, keeping his arms pinned. Sandy cuddled against Pitch’s side, motioning for Tooth to give him the sulai/tharra. The fairy reluctantly complied, and Sandy took a huge gulp of it himself before offering it to the Boogeyman.

“No, Sanderson.”  Pitch snarled. “I have no wish to become intoxicated with any of you.”

Sandy pouted.

‘ _Why not_?’ The former star-pilot asked, thoughts quiet and even sounding slightly slurred as they were projected into Pitch’s mind.

“Because I don’t.” Pitch insisted stubbornly.

‘ _I’ll untie you if you can drink the rest of this bottle._ ’ Sandy held up the huge bottle, which was still about a third of the way full, and smirked. Pitch glared. ‘ _Or you can just hang here with us all night…_ ’ The rope morphed in a dreamsand cage, and Sandy held the bottle towards Pitch, waving it back and forth as if that would make the alcohol seem more enticing.

“Fine.” Pitch growled, reaching through the bars and snatching the bottle from the Sandman, who grinned. Pitch took a swig of the sulai, recognizing the taste immediately and grimacing at having to drink something with such a high alcohol content. Wanting now just to be away from the Guardians as soon as possible, Pitch took another long drink, then another, then a fourth, and another…until the tharra was gone. Then the cage disappeared and Pitch stumbled off of the dreamsand back onto the floor…

And then Jack was putting another bottle in his hand and that seemed like a good idea; Pitch took a huge drink of it and let Jack pull him down onto the floor, ignoring Tooth’s never-ending laughter and...was that snoring? Yes, Pitch realized, Bunnymund was fast asleep and snoring into the carpet. North was sitting on the ground with Tooth sprawled across his lap, still giggling as she twirled bits of the toymaker’s beard around her fingers affectionately.

Pitch finished the rest of the whiskey and another small bottle of sulai, resting his head in Jack’s lap and babbling to the boy about everything from how much he hated the Guardians, to the locket he kept in his robe, to how just last night he’d stubbed his toe on a rock while out scaring kids. Jack was perfectly happy to just listen and run his fingers through Pitch’s hair continuously, provided that he could steal a drink of North’s vodka every few minutes.

Soon, though, Tooth was straddling North’s hips and they were kissing for longer than was strictly humanly possible and then they were getting handsy with each other so Pitch decided that Jack was far too young to see this kind of thing, and he said so, loudly and angrily, until North and Tooth stumbled out of the room and (presumably) back to North’s bedroom.

Sandy and Bunny were both asleep now, and North and Tooth were gone, so it was just Jack and Pitch, and Jack was running his fingers through Pitch’s hair, all gentle touches and soothing cold, and soon Pitch could feel himself drifting off…

 

 

…Pitch woke up with the worst hangover he’d ever experienced, grimacing when he opened his eyes even though the room he was in wasn’t that bright. He lay where he was, groggy for a moment and trying to remember what had happened the night before, but then his pillow _moved_ and that wasn’t a pillow that was Jack Frost and Pitch had fallen asleep _in North’s workshop_ with his head on Jack Frost’s _chest._ Pitch gulped nervously, waiting for the previous night’s memories to return and hating this headache. Slowly, he began to remember all he’d done, all he’d _said,_ and Pitch would have smacked his head into a wall repeatedly if it didn’t hurt enough already.

“Glargh arghle bloota urgh.” Someone garbled much too loudly, nudging Pitch’s shoulder, and he looked up at the yeti standing over him. The yeti was holding a tray of four mugs, one of which he held out to Pitch.

“What is this?” Pitch asked disgustedly, staring at the sludge-ish looking liquid.

“Is Phil’s patented hangover cure.” North said from nearby, and Pitch nearly dropped the mug in his surprise at not having noticed the man before. North chuckled, taking a drink from his own mug. “Hah! Do not worry, is against Guardian law to attack someone with hangover.”

“There isn’t a ‘Guardian law’, you’re making that up.” Pitch pointed out, still eyeing the mug in his hands. “But thank you.”

North smiled. Pitch looked around the room, finding Toothiana in the darkest corner of the room with a mug of the so-called hangover cure, and Bunnymund and Sanderson still fast asleep. The yeti—Phil—put the tray of mugs down on a nearby table before leaving the room.

Pitch finally took a drink of the sludgy drink, only to find to his surprise that it didn’t actually taste that bad. He finished it quickly, feeling…not good, but at least _better,_ once he had, and he got up to put the mug back on the tray just in time for Jack to stir. This was going to be great, Pitch grinned evilly as he picked up another full mug, walking as silently as possible over to Jack and sitting down next to the boy. When Jack’s eye fluttered open, the first thing he saw was the Nightmare King, and Jack yelped, scuttling backwards before collapsing again with a muttered,

“Ow ow ow ow my head what the actual hell happened last night holy crap.”

Pitch snorted a laugh, holding the mug toward Jack.

“That’s not poison, is it?” Jack asked warily, looking around the room at Tooth and North. He didn’t take the mug until North had explained what it was.

Sandy, it turned out, didn’t even need the hangover cure, and was sent many an envious glance from the others. Bunny pressed his paws over his ears upon waking up, took one look around the room, saw Pitch, and lay back down with an announcement full of slang and swears that basically boiled down to a simple “fuck that.”

“Where did you get sulai?” Pitch finally had to ask, looking at Tooth with a mixture of confusion and amusement. “Isn’t it illegal?”

“Techincally?” Tooth admitted. “What?” She demanded at Jack’s incredulous look. “Every good Sister of Flight knows how to make tharra.”

North snorted dubiously, and Tooth glared at him, her eyes just _daring_ him to call her out on her bullshit. Jack did it for him, though, and while Toothiana wrestled Jack into submission and Sandy tried to save Jack before the boy ended up skinned, North and Pitch laughed so hard that Bunnymund woke up again, finally taking his mug of hangover-cure while yelling at all of them to “shut up and bugger off”.

            Pitch ended up staying with the Guardians until they all came completely back to their senses, at which point no one really knew what to do other than sit in awkward silence because Pitch was their _enemy_ but he’d also just gotten drunk off his face with the rest of them and it was the weirdest situation any of them had found themselves in for a long time.

            Pitch finally left after Bunny and Sandy had gone home and Tooth and North were cuddled together in front of the fireplace, so once again it was just him and Jack sitting together on the floor. The Nightmare King stood up, moving to the shadows to leave, when Jack grabbed his wrist.

            “Come back sometime. North wants to do karaoke next month, it’ll probably be hilarious. You should go.” Jack grinned mischievously.

            Pitch allowed himself the tiniest hint of a smile.

            “Maybe I will.”


End file.
